Oddments (Jim's Blog)

As spring approaches and you prepare to break ground on that new privy, please keep your community in mind…

Painted by Edward Hopper in 1942, Nighthawks officially hangs at the Art Institute Of Chicago (and unofficially hangs on my computer as my new desktop wallpaper).

I’ve always liked the image and find that, like other work by Hopper I’m seeing for the first time, I can’t quite describe why.  It seems he had a thing about windows.  People looking into them, people looking out of them, and people sitting near them.  Not sure what that’s about, and not to sound like a simpleton, but it’s the colors that grab me.

Do a google image search on his work and you’ll see what I mean.

A public service from your friends at Oddments (circa 1938).

Happy New Year!

The best way to get back into posting on a regular basis is to just start posting.  That’s all this is, so forgive its apparent uselessness.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.  I think they’re foolish, and almost expected to be either forgotten or ignored soon after they’re made.  And honestly, if something is important enough to you, you don’t wait to address it.  Resolutions are nothing more than an excuse to put off something you think you should be doing until the new year, and then when you fail or forget, an easy way to shrug it off.  After all, nobody really follows through with the damn things, so….

Having said that, it occurred to me I ought to try and post here more regularly in 2012.  Say, three times a week or so?  I’ve failed miserably so far.  Just about the time I’d finished putting this site together, and moving all the stuff from the Retro Jim blog over, some things changed for me “offline”.  That is to say, I don’t have as much time to post as I once did.  End of excuses.

So, my non-resolution is to resolve to actually offer up some posts here, and hopefully develop the audio version of Oddments that sparked the whole thing in the first place.  More on that later.

Thanks for sticking around through the silence.  If you’re a new visitor, welcome to the noise.

A little something I came across a couple of days ago, though truth be told I don’t remember what led me there.  Anyway, get a load of this bit of James Bond trivia:

Fleming decided Bond should look a little like both the American singer Hoagy Carmichael and himself and in Casino Royale, Vesper Lynd remarks, “Bond reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless.” Likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is “certainly good-looking… Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.” -wikipedia

I do enjoy the mans music, but I don’t see even a little secret agent in him.

We assembled in the usual room at the usual time, a couple of dozen in number and counting the minutes before we’d begin the march.  Called to attention, the excited voices quieted for roll call.  Barely seated and itching to leave, we waited for the tally to be completed so we could gear up and go.  A name was called, quickly answered by a raised hand and a “here!” The process repeated again and again, each name followed by an affirmative answer.  Of course everyone made it in that day, who’d miss the chance for adventure?

With all souls accounted for and our safety briefing done, we gathered our kit. Three sheets of large paper rolled up for transport.  Check.  Crayons of various colors.  Check.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwich in brown paper bag.  Check. Permission slip.  Check.

Released from our seats, we assumed classic school formation: the single file line.  And there we stood, like a plane full of paratroops waiting for the green light to signal the jump through the door.  Excitement, anticipation, and the general happiness that is leaving school early caused little feet to creep slowly forward as we awaited the signal to go.  Unlike most field trips, we’d take no bus.  This time, and only this time, we would walk.

There’s  a relationship between distance and the length of the leg.  The legs were all short that day, so our destination felt farther away than it actually was.  In reality the school sat in the center of a large subdivision, and our objective waited on the other side of the road that defined its southern most border.  To get to that road, and to what now would be a death-defying dash across it, was only as scenic as your enjoyment of deja-vu.

Having left the school grounds, our line of intrepid young adventurers headed into the collection of houses and streets.  We walked single file, shadowing the curb, and passed house after similarly looking house until it felt like the background of an old cartoon that repeats itself every few frames.  The teacher worked the line like a sheep dog, keeping us herded and moving in the proper direction.  The fact that one car could take us all out like a row of dominoes must not have been a concern back then.

Our march ended with us (illegally) crossing the road the subdivision emptied out on to, and entering the old cemetery.  Yes, a cemetery.

Every cemetery I’ve ever seen looks a whole lot like every other.  Green grass, old-growth trees, stones of various natures, statuary that you’d swear moves when it’s in the corner of your eye, and the uncertainty of where it’s safe to walk.  If stepping on a crack is dangerous, treading over the wrong part of a graveyard can’t be good – on account of that other thing that all cemeteries have in common.

What was unique that day, obviously, was the two-dozen kids running around with paper and crayons, carefully taking rubbings of hundred-year old headstones.  What lesson plan the activity was linked to is lost to my memory, but we took our rubbings, ate our lunches, and walked back to the school the same way we came.

How the teacher justified an excursion to a graveyard is beyond me.  How the entity that manages the cemetery allowed it is even more mind-boggling.  But we did it then, and I wish I still had those rubbings as a souvenir of a memorable day, and my first encounter with morbid curiosity.  After all, any kid worth his salt is going to start wondering about the state of what’s buried underneath that stone.

The era of exploration may be over – the maps of the old gentleman adventurer now hang covered in pins indicating “been there, done that”.   No longer are wooden sailing ships filled with provisions and pushed into the depths of the Antarctic. Flags have been planted on both the North and South Poles, even the moon.  The highest of mountains have been conquered, the deepest of caves explored.  Not that man has stuck his finger in every nook and cranny of this planet, but it’s safe to say that if human feet haven’t touched it, the eyes of the satellites have.  But, one of the greatest things about being a kid is none of that crap matters, and even a day long hike can be a grand expedition.